Computer & ICT Tips

Laptops have an advantage over smaller electronics when it comes to the battery. They have more room to put a power source in a laptop than phones or portable media players.

But as applications become increasingly demanding and your work requires more and more mobility, it’s very possible that your laptop battery still isn’t up to your expectation. Try the following ediaro.com Hints & Tips to improve battery time on your Laptop, so that you can stay mobile and flexible for longer:

Reduce your Screen Brightness. Your laptop screen eats up power relentlessly. If you use your laptop in a well lit area or outdoors on a sunny day, try setting it at two or three bars. You can dim the brightness of your screen using the function keys on your notebook to greatly reduce battery consumption.

Turn the volume level down, or mute it, if you do not plan to use it.

Keep your laptop battery cool. Battery power saps more quickly when the battery is hot. Keep vents clear and don’t put your laptop on a pillow or other surface that will cover vents and trap heat.

Avoid extreme temperatures. Batteries rely on basic chemistry and will die faster at extreme temperatures. Try to charge and use the battery at room temperatures.

Don’t keep your laptop plugged in. If you rarely unplug your laptop, you’re leaving it in a state of perpetual charge at 100 percent. That’s bad for the battery’s long-term health. Unplug it on occasion and let the battery drain.

Put your computer to sleep when not in use. If you’re taking a break, let your computer take one as well.

Shut down or hibernate the laptop rather than using standby. If you plan on not using it for a while. Standby continues to drain energy to keep your laptop ready to go when you open the cover.

Remove the battery if you’re working at your desk for a while. When you remove it, don’t store it fully charged. Aim for the middle: between 40 and 50 percent.

Buy an extra battery. Keep a spare battery on hand in case you can’t get to a power outlet.

Close nonessential programs. The more your computer does, the more battery power it requires. Close any programs or background applications you’re not using.

Avoid using a CD or DVD. If you store a copy of data you need on an optical disc, copy it to your laptop’s hard drive or a flash drive before traveling. Optical drives consume large amounts of power to spin up CDs and DVDs. Try to avoid applications that keep your hard drive or optical drive spinning. Need to play music? Try to use your Mobile phone or MP3 player, rather than playing songs on your computer while on battery. Playing songs on your computer will keep the hard drive working which uses energy. Turn off the auto save feature on MS Word or Excel. In addition, eject the external devices like pen drive, DVD, Hard Disk etc. if not in use constant saving will keep your hard drive turning and using energy.

Disable wifi. Obviously there are times that having wireless internet is required, but for your next presentation or writing marathon, save your battery (and your focus) by turning it off.

Turn off Bluetooth. Turn off your laptop’s Bluetooth when you’re not connected to a phone or other peripheral – to avoid draining your laptop’s battery.

Change power options. Macs and PCs have built-in functions to help you maximize battery life and efficiency. You can set the computer to effectively balance features like auto-sleep and screen brightness to make sure you’re productive at your laptop all day without worrying about the battery.

Use a cooling pad when using a notebook computer on your lap. But if it’s a USB pad then don’t use it as it will most likely use up more battery rather than to conserve it.

Learn to single-task. PC memory that is in-use takes more power to hold data. Also, using more memory might mean using more swap or virtual memory space on your laptop’s hard drive. All of this puts an additional drain on your laptop’s battery. Instead of leaving multiple applications and windows open, use only what you need at any given time. If your laptop has plenty of memory, then keep multiple applications open to avoid loading repeatedly from the hard drive. Close all the applications that run in the background on your computer like your PDA syncing software or USB hard drive backup software.

Keep it clean. A laptop with blocked air vents will generate more heat thus reducing the life of the battery. Clean the air vents regularly to keep operating temperatures low. Allow for open space around the vents for air to circulate freely. Keep the area around the laptop clean to avoid entry of dust.

Try a third-party power management tool. Such as TuneUp Utility

About ediaro. com

For over 5 years ediaro.com (a member of Fladio International Nigeria Limited) has provided web solutions and advertising for public and private sectors. Our main division is Computer and Information Technology. Thanks to our flexible approach towards the development of new solutions, we have often been at the inception of digital revolution and incorporating the most recent technologies. When you partner with ediaro.com, you are associating with one of Africa's best company for your ICT needs, we are the 1st Nigerian Company listed on the Economic Community for West African States (ECOWAS) ECOBIZ computer session in 2010. Focusing on quality, reliability and design of our products and services has brought us customers and partnership with local and Multinational Companies such as United Bank for Africa Plc (UBA), Interswitch Limited, Stanbic IBTC Bank Plc among others. Our current customer portfolio covers individuals, companies and Government agencies across the globe including Nigeria, India, United Kingdom, Mozambique and United States of America.

Blackberry is now an essential part of our life in recent time, by default blackberry are usable straight out of the box, because all you need to do is press the Menu key to get the main options on every screen – but the BlackBerry operating system hides a huge number of clever tricks and shortcuts that makes it faster and simpler to get things done.

By following this ediaro.com Hints and tips, you would be taking your BlackBerry to the next level? In this list, you’ll find some of the most awesome tips, How-TO and guides for the BlackBerry, making it easy for just about anyone to become a power user.

Skip Symbol

If you’re typing an email address into a field that expects an email address, don’t bother looking for how to type the @; just hit space and BlackBerry with put the @ in for you. Press space when you need the . in the middle of the email address and it will fill that in, too. Do the same for URLs in the browser; pressing space fills in the periods faster than typing them by hand.

Faster Email

Check your emails faster by going inside of an email, and then hitting the “N” button. This will take you to the next message quickly and easily.

Fast select

There’s a Select command on the menu for choosing what to copy and paste – but you can make a selection just by holding down the Shift key as you scroll the trackball.

Stop a Page from Loading

Press the Escape button to keep Web pages from loading.

Video Converter

Download the BlackBerry Video Converter to watch all your favorite videos directly on the phone whenever you want.

Keyboard shortcuts

Save on scrolling by using’t’ to get to the top of any email message, web page or other long screen and ‘b’ to get to the bottom. There are specific shortcuts for all the built-in apps like using the Mute button to pause videos or music or skipping to the next or previous track by pressing and holding the volume up and down keys (which also zoom in and out in the camera – although many apps use I and O to zoom); there’s a list in the Help tool.

Fast search

You can search for contacts, messages and inside files and web pages – press S to search in contacts and messages and F to search in other apps.

Colour-code messages

If you get both work and personal email on your BlackBerry, you can change the colour of either set of messages. Choose Options > Security Options >Information> Message Outline Colours and either Enterprise Messages or Other Messages.

Menu multi-tasking

BlackBerry has had multitasking for years but it’s subtly done; apps stay running so you can switch back to them (unless you run out of memory when they’re closed automatically). To get back to another app, press and hold the Menu button to get the task switcher.

Lock with mute

Some BlackBerrys have both a lock and a mute button on the top edge, others – like the original Bold – only have a mute button. You can always lock the screen by scrolling down to the Lock icon but it’s faster to just press and hold mute until the screen locks (do the same to unlock it).

Three-Way Calling

Need to talk to two people at once? Hit the space bar in your first call, choose a contact to dial, and after the second caller answers, switch back and forth between the two or have them both join in with you.

Real convenience

There are two ‘convenience keys’ – one on each side of the BlackBerry; you’ve probably found one of them by knocking it and hearing that irritating ‘say a command’ message. If you never use voice command, choose Options > Screen/Keyboard to change the buttons to something more useful – starting the camera, opening the music player or launching your favorite app.

Tweak your trackball

Use Options > Screen/Keyboard and scroll to the bottom of the page to choose the horizontal and vertical sensitivity (how far it moves across the screen when you move it) and whether you hear a click as it rolls.

Turn off speakerphone

The slightly confusing way to put a call on speakerphone is to use Menu > Activate Speakerphone; the even more confusing way to turn it off is Menu > Activate Handset – or you can use the $ key to turn it on and off. (And the $ key produces the $ sign in email, use Options > Screen/Keyboard > Currency key to set it to £ or your preferred currency instead).

Say a command

Voice command does more than voice dialling; if you want to check your signal and battery strength you can wade through the Options menu or you can hit the voice command button and say ‘status’ or ‘check battery’ and ‘check signal strength’.

Say it again

Voice recognition works quite well, but you can train it by reading a list of numbers and words; choose Options > Voice Dialing> Adapt Voice.

VOICE TRAINING: Choose Adapt Voice and your BlackBerry will ask you to read a list of sample names and numbers

Hidden Help

The hidden ‘Help Me!’ screen shows the signal strength, battery level, device PIN, free space, space in use, IMEI, OS version, how long the BlackBerry has been on and some other info that can be useful for troubleshooting. View it by pressing Alt + Caps + H.

Important Notes

Let’s say your friend has something important he or she is telling you, but you don’t have a pen and paper available. While still on the phone with your friend, click the track wheel, go to Notes and open it, then type your note and save it for later. Simple as that.

Organizing Folders

You are not limited to the folders that come with your BlackBerry; you can create your own in just three steps and then edit them as you wish. Start by clicking on the menu option on your BlackBerry, and then select the option to add a folder; your BlackBerry will ask you to name the folder. From there you will be presented an option to choose a folder color. If you decide after you create your folder that you would like to rename it or change its color, all you have to do is scroll over it, select the menu button and choose the option to edit the folder. After creating folders, you can place your programs in them to reduce the clutter on your screen.

How to delete multiple emails

It’s easy to delete emails en masse on a BlackBerry® smartphone. All you need to do is while in your email list is highlight a chosen date (rather that highlighting a given email message), press the menu key and highlight and select ‘Delete Prior.’ All e-mail before that date will be deleted.

How to change your device’s password:

In the device options, click Security Options

Click General Settings > Set the Password field to Enabled > Press the Menu key > Click Save.

To turn off the BlackBerry smartphone password, set the Password field to Disabled.

About ediaro. com

For over 5 years ediaro.com (a member of Fladio International Nigeria Limited) has provided web solutions and advertising for public and private sectors. Our main division is Computer and Information Technology. Thanks to our flexible approach towards the development of new solutions, we have often been at the inception of digital revolution and incorporating the most recent technologies. When you partner with ediaro.com, you are associating with one of Africa's best company for your ICT needs, we are the 1st Nigerian Company listed on the Economic Community for West African States (ECOWAS) ECOBIZ computer session in 2010. Focusing on quality, reliability and design of our products and services has brought us customers and partnership with local and Multinational Companies such as United Bank for Africa Plc (UBA), Interswitch Limited, Stanbic IBTC Bank Plc among others. Our current customer portfolio covers individuals, companies and Government agencies across the globe including Nigeria, India, United Kingdom, Mozambique and United States of America.

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For over 8 years ediaro.com (a member of Fladio International Nigeria Limited) has provided web solutions, digital payment setup and integration and advertising for public and private sectors. Our main division is Computer and Information Technology. Thanks to our flexible approach towards the development of new solutions, we have often been at the inception of digital revolution and incorporating the most recent technologies. When you partner with ediaro.com, you are associating with one of Africa's best company for your ICT needs, we are the 1st Nigerian Company listed on the Economic Community for West African States (ECOWAS) ECOBIZ computer session in 2010. Focusing on quality, reliability and design of our products and services has brought us customers and partnership with local and Multinational Companies such as United Bank for Africa Plc (UBA), Interswitch Limited, Stanbic IBTC Bank Plc among others. Our current customer portfolio covers individual, companies and Government agencies across the globe including Nigeria, India, United Kingdom, Mozambique and United States of America. read More>>